What’s butlins like

[Bee3214]

I was going to try butlins this year but which is the best? Also, what is the dining experience like?
Thanks

It's great for kids. Everything is included, swimming, shows, beach, soft play, etc. Dining is basic canteen buffet but nice enough. We love it and go to Skegness every year.

We went to Minehead and Bognor a few times each when the kids were younger. They loved it as there’s lots of activities. The first time we stayed at Minehead, the accommodation wasn’t the best, think it was a silver apartment. After that we stayed at the Blueskies apartments, much nicer, but they’re much more expensive. At Bognor we stayed at the hotel which was pretty good. We haven’t been for a few years as the kids are too old but I think they were due to open new accommodation last time we were there.

We went self catering first time and ended up eating pizza and burgers most days, even the kids were fed up by the end of the holiday. After that we chose the premium dining and it was good. Lots of choice and kids loved it.

We went to Skegness when ours were little the first hour or two I really hated it and thought I would have to check out early.

But then once I relaxed and saw the kids having such a blast it was fantastic. We went two or three times. We opted for the gold meal plan and it was fine.

The marquee area is a bit of a cash cow but we had good weather and spent a lot of time on the beach making sand castles, splashing in the waves and donkey rides which was a nice relaxing contrast to the marquee area and ours went to the free funfair aimed at little ones and we watched/took part in quite a few activities and shows during the day and early evening that we thought the kids would like. It was years ago so ours were into Bob the Builder, Angelina Ballerina and Power Rangers etc. We didn’t go to the main evening entertainment venue as I couldn’t be done with queuing for a seat and liked to get the kids to bed so we could chill out with a glass of wine.

Closest thing I've ever seen to hell on earth

I would just be aware of the "covid guarantee". Its taken us weeks to get a refund. Luckily we booked through an agent so they have had to do the phoning up to nag butlins to refund us, otherwise I would have had to do it myself and spend hours of my time.

We do haven rather than butlins but I think it's great. Inexpensive and family friendly. We went on lots of haven holidays as children and have fond memories.

Also be aware, we went in august so COVID rules were in place. This made it quite a different holiday than normally.

You could only go swimming twice in a week and these had to be booked. It was also very very busy in the pool, and the fact that everyone arrived and left at the same time meant the changing rooms were also busy. It was worse for COVID rules than normal!

The venue for the shows was closed and this was replaced with an outdoor venue, you had to book for the outdoor venue and anything worth going to was booked within literal seconds of being available. And if the weather was bad the shows were cancelled anyway.

There was a limit to the numbers in the arcade and sometimes they closed it due to too many being in there.

Minehead was fantastic 🌺